Electric Royal Enfield ? What do you think?

[Iowarider]

Try to picture in your mind's eye a chapter of Hell's Angels out for a ride on their Harley Livewires.

 

[grymsr]

Something like this?

Context: this scene is from a hand-drawn Japanese animated film from 1988. This is in the the beginning of the movie, where one group of bikers on all-electric bikes (the group hanging out in the bar) get into a fight with a rival gang (the Clowns) who are on a mix of gas and electric rides. The leader of the first group - in the red jacket with a red and blue pill on the back - rides a foot-forward model that's the most advanced bike in the scene. I can't find a good version of the whole fight in a single video, so I've added clips for the first and second half of the fight. There are English dubbed versions, but I couldn't quickly find any high quality clips to show, so you'll have to make do with subtitles.

Part 1:

Part 2 (motorcycle portion ends at around 2:30):

The second video ended at the point when the young biker, Tetsuo, crashes into a kid with weird psychic powers. It's from this point that the movie delves into the main storyline: how Tetsuo is changed from the interaction with those powers, and the resulting chaos that ensues. The rest of the movie is kind of hard to follow, and delves into how new esoteric and metaphysical ideas can be corrupted by governmental incompetence and greed. The rest of the movie isn't about motorcycles, although they do make an occasional appearance. The bike fight was just a cherry on top to introduce some of the main characters and set the scene (Japan in the future, civil unrest, etc).

GREAT movie, BTW!

 

[grymsr]

The only reason I knew there was such a thing as a Harley Livewire is because this movie "Vanquish" showed up as a "more like this" on Netflix. I had never heard of it but I saw that it had Morgan Freeman in it and I figured "It couldn't be too bad if he's in it". Boy was I wrong. It sucked. I'm ashamed to admit I got about 1/2 though it before I turned it off. What a waste of life. Morgan Freeman really debased himself with this one. But I digress. The other main character in it was this chick with a Sinead O'Conner haircut that rode around on this really weird looking and even weirder sounding motorcycle. So I looked it up on the internet and found that it was a Harley Davidson Livewire.

Morgan freeman is getting to be like Micheal cane: he is in plenty of movies and some really stink.

 

[Back Road Rider]

After 46 years of riding I guess it would be time to call it a good ride, if I was forced to go electric.

 

[Iowarider]

the appropriate response to electric motorcycles.

 

[StefArmstg]

This isn't about what works or what's fun. It's about the survival of the planet! We're only a few years away from the (second) point of no return. I'm old enough to remember when it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and you could go outside without a hazmat suit. Not like now. I don't know what it's like where you live but this what I see when I step outside. A blasted hellscape of devastation

 

[Stig57]

Lithium batteries are not the answer. There's loads of stuff on Youtube and elsewhere showing the devastation in Chile caused by lithium and copper mining.
Pumping huge amounts of salt water into land to extract minerals is always a bad idea. Ask anyone from Wyoming. I rode through Wyoming in 2006 and it looked like large parts had been abandoned.
Something has to be done but trusting multi national corporations to fix anything is never going to work unless it generates huge profits.

 

[Woodstock]

Lithium batteries are not the answer. There's loads of stuff on Youtube and elsewhere showing the devastation in Chile caused by lithium and copper mining.
Pumping huge amounts of salt water into land to extract minerals is always a bad idea. Ask anyone from Wyoming. I rode through Wyoming in 2006 and it looked like large parts had been abandoned.
Something has to be done but trusting multi national corporations to fix anything is never going to work unless it generates huge profits.

Agreed, it is stop gap technology at best.

 

[Woodstock]

This isn't about what works or what's fun. It's about the survival of the planet! We're only a few years away from the (second) point of no return. I'm old enough to remember when it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and you could go outside without a hazmat suit. Not like now. I don't know what it's like where you live but this what I see when I step outside. A blasted hellscape of devastation

View attachment 11361

I'm a tree hugger regardless but the haze from the Canadian wildfires right now is really weird. You can smell the smoke. Yesterday, I drove around looking to see if there was an unreported local fire. Apparently people from 20 miles away to my locale were calling in suspicious smoke reports to dispatch. I've experienced this in other places on the globe but in the U.S. NE it is not what I think of as typical.

 

[Lost in the 60's]

Lithium batteries are not the answer. There's loads of stuff on Youtube and elsewhere showing the devastation in Chile caused by lithium and copper mining.
Pumping huge amounts of salt water into land to extract minerals is always a bad idea. Ask anyone from Wyoming. I rode through Wyoming in 2006 and it looked like large parts had been abandoned.
Something has to be done but trusting multi national corporations to fix anything is never going to work unless it generates huge profits.

Also when lithium batteries go bad and have to be disposed of they become toxic waste.

 

[Aitrus]

I'm a tree hugger regardless but the haze from the Canadian wildfires right now is really weird. You can smell the smoke. Yesterday, I drove around looking to see if there was an unreported local fire. Apparently people from 20 miles away to my locale were calling in suspicious smoke reports to dispatch. I've experienced this in other places on the globe but in the U.S. NE it is not what I think of as typical.

I spent over a decade in Western Washington state. What's funny to me right now is how so many in the Northeastern part of the US are panicking, yet that kind of smoke is a regular occurrance in the Pacific Northwest - especially inland towards Idaho. It's mostly due to bad forest management practices that create ideal conditions for wildfires.

 

[japlw]

..

British EV Converter Equips Royal Enfield With Electric Powerplant

UK-based vintage car converter Electric Classic Cars tries its hand at motorcycles with the Royal Enfield Bullet “Photon”.

www.rideapart.com

What is that? Is this the future ?
looks like we may be dragged kicking and screaming to this.

How does one carry extra fuel ?
What will I do with my rotopax fuel carrier

Do they come equipped with a Tesla fire extinguisher or are is it just an after thought ?

 

[Stig57]

So, you get a perfectly good motorcycle that will do nearly 100 mpg, junk most of it and then fit an electric motor and a huge battery that causes more problems than it's worth. Then you charge folk enough to buy a garage worth of the original bike. Beltin' !

 

[Woodstock]

I spent over a decade in Western Washington state. What's funny to me right now is how so many in the Northeastern part of the US are panicking, yet that kind of smoke is a regular occurrance in the Pacific Northwest - especially inland towards Idaho. It's mostly due to bad forest management practices that create ideal conditions for wildfires.

Agreed, but for whatever reason we don't see it here. Prevailing winds? The media may blow it up as it is over the financial and political capitals known globally. And then while the percentage of respiratory calls is probably the same, the absolute number is higher here because of population density.

 

[Old Boy]

I am I think like most people in that I won't buy an EV until they 1-vastly improve the national grid, 2-get a battery that is not prone to burst into flames, 3 and get a range that is comparable to the bikes at present.
EV battery runs down stop to charge (if you can find one that is available) let's say 2 hours. ICE pull up to a pump, 2 mins to fill, 2mins to pay and your off.
If I was to go to Devon i live in NI) it would take roughly a full day to get there, possibly more. They are fine for town and local rides but if there was a group of you will it degenerate to fisticuffs as to who will get on the charger. Food for thought. Then I am in my 70s so my riding days are getting fewer so I don't care really.

 

[dabs]

I am I think like most people in that I won't buy an EV until they 1-vastly improve the national grid, 2-get a battery that is not prone to burst into flames, 3 and get a range that is comparable to the bikes at present.
EV battery runs down stop to charge (if you can find one that is available) let's say 2 hours. ICE pull up to a pump, 2 mins to fill, 2mins to pay and your off.
If I was to go to Devon i live in NI) it would take roughly a full day to get there, possibly more. They are fine for town and local rides but if there was a group of you will it degenerate to fisticuffs as to who will get on the charger. Food for thought. Then I am in my 70s so my riding days are getting fewer so I don't care really.

Or, in lieu of charging stations, being able to pull into a garage forecourt and swap out the battery for a fully charged one from a bank of them, i expect that would take longer than 2 mins though but less than 2 hours

 

[Aitrus]

I am I think like most people in that I won't buy an EV until they 1-vastly improve the national grid, 2-get a battery that is not prone to burst into flames, 3 and get a range that is comparable to the bikes at present.
EV battery runs down stop to charge (if you can find one that is available) let's say 2 hours. ICE pull up to a pump, 2 mins to fill, 2mins to pay and your off.
If I was to go to Devon i live in NI) it would take roughly a full day to get there, possibly more. They are fine for town and local rides but if there was a group of you will it degenerate to fisticuffs as to who will get on the charger. Food for thought. Then I am in my 70s so my riding days are getting fewer so I don't care really.

Isn't this behind some of the thinking behind the whole "15 minute city" concept? To have a city that you don't need to travel away from because everything you "need" (at least, in the judgement of government bean counters and authoritarian busy-bodies) is within a 15 minute walk and you only need special permission for rare occasions to travel outside that limit? If we have 15 minute cities, then a low-endurance EV bike / vehicle is ideal for that living situation - in utopian theory, anyway.

 

[Dirtroad]

Electric vehicles should have never gone bigger than electric bicycles until we figure out better battery than the current ones are.

 

[Andyb]

I am afraid that however you look at it, that we have screwed up.
Earlier posts here spoke of 200 years of fossil fuels. That is not the issue.
The issue is climate change. Like it or not, that is what is setting fire to Rhodes and giving blistering hot summers.
EVs are an attempt to help - but we do not have enough lithium or other chemicals. In cities EVs are good - short journeys / clean local air - but perhaps not so good for longer distances?
I pollute too much - I drive, ride and fly. I am 63 now so will be dead by the time the world melts down, but unless I change I will be one of the people who caused it.

 

[Grayson Bellingham]

I doubt something like a Bullet with an electric motor would be viable but as RE don't have any offerings in the popular moped sector and they seem to want to expand as a company they probably should be looking at developing an Electric moped. Zero emission zones will arrive in India just like the rest of the world. If they managed to make a success of that, get their battery supply in place with a solid investment in battery tech then something like an Electric Super Meteor to pitch against HD Livewire and undercut on price would become a possibility.